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Democratic presidential candidates curb their politeness, throw elbows at each other
September 10, 2003

Baltimore, MD — The time for polite banter is over in the Democratic presidential race. With the start of primary elections now four months away, the nine candidates are throwing elbows in an effort to force their way to the front.

In previous appearances together, the candidates have looked more like a ragtag team of underdogs hankering to make the big leagues and take on President Bush. The sharpest barbs have aimed at the president, while the candidates largely have avoided challenging each other by name.

Not so Tuesday night at a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. Some of the sharpest exchanges were between front-runner Howard Dean and Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000.

Lieberman said comments Dean made last week about the Middle East "break a 50-year record in which presidents, Republicans and Democrats, members of Congress of both parties have supported our relationship with Israel."

The former Vermont governor responded that his position was the same as former President Clinton's, and Lieberman, who is Jewish, interrupted by saying, "Not right ... not right."

"It doesn't help, Joe, to demagogue this issue," Dean replied.

And so the gloves were off.

Several other Democrats said Lieberman's performance illustrated why his rivals shied away from attacking Dean, even at the risk of allowing Dean to build on the momentum he developed over the summer.

"It basically sounded shrill to me," said Joe Shanahan, veteran Democratic activist in Iowa. "Lieberman didn't make his point well, and Dean responded strongly."

One candidate who didn't take on Dean was the one who may be most threatened by him, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Dean has taken over Kerry's early lead in the early primary state of New Hampshire. Kerry has decided not to go negative now, although some of his supporters and even some advisers have been pressing him to do so.

The debate was at Morgan State University, a historically black college, and the Democrats took pains to stress their support for civil rights and other concerns to blacks - although Al Sharpton said black voters shouldn't allow themselves to be taken for granted.

"We need to correct the party so we can beat Bush with one expanded pie," he said in remarks critical of what he sees as Democratic inattentiveness to black concerns.

But international affairs dominated the debate. It opened with questions on Iraq, and some of the candidates tried to maintain their focus on Bush by criticizing his handling of the postwar reconstruction.

But those who opposed Bush's attack on Iraq put some of the blame on their fellow Democratic candidates who voted for the war resolution - Kerry, Lieberman, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt.

Without mentioning any names, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida said they handed Bush "a blank check." Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun said they gave the president "the right to go on a free-for-all."

Sharpton threw one of Gephardt's favorite lines - that Bush's foreign policy is a "miserable failure" - back at him and the other war supporters.

"I've never heard of people acting like they didn't know we needed an exit when we gave him an entrance," Sharpton said. "That is a miserable failure for us to allow this president to play these kinds of games."

Gephardt was the Democratic leader of the House at the time of the vote and helped negotiate passage of the war resolution. He said he had tried to get the president's assurance that he would get help from other nations before launching an attack.

"It is an abomination that he has not gotten our country and our troops the help that we need," Gephardt said.

Peace candidate Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, shot back: "Dick, I just want to say that when you were standing there in the Rose Garden with the president and you were giving him advice, I wish that you would have told him no."

Michael Coleman, Democratic mayor of Columbus, Ohio, said he's not sure whether the candidates are effective when they attack each other. He said they are at their best when going after Bush.

"The sparks were flying between Dean and Lieberman and they're all trying to distinguish themselves," he said.

In 90 minutes of debate, not all the issues were weighty. One questioner asked the nine would-be presidents to name their favorite song. "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," said Graham, referring to a Jimmy Buffett tune.

The debate was interrupted several times by protesters in the hall; university police arrested four people. "This is crazy," said Sharpton, a man who first rose to prominence as a civil rights street activist.

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